Celtic Manor a reminder of a lost country
One of the great man’s best anecdotes centred on two down-and-outs huddling together for warmth on O’Connell Bridge in Dublin one cold winter evening, when a Rolls-Royce hisses past.
‘That’s Murphy the bookie,’ says one of the knights of the road.
‘And isn’t he a credit to us,’ says the other.
Read bookie, think banker.
The staggering mess – no, make that eye-rolling, sweat-inducing shambles we find ourselves in as a nation needs little embellishment or explanation from this corner.
It carries a dark energy all its own, a looming cloud of worry: if right were right it would have its own theme music, a heavy affair of strings to put you in mind of John Williams’ work on Jaws, all those years ago.
With that in mind our thoughts turned to the Ryder Cup, squelching its way through the Welsh valleys. (This is not one of our semi-regular rants against golf, by the way; after the last one a reader mailed in to say we would presumably have no complaints about a game of rings in a named pub on Leeside. Snob? Moi? Hark at her.)
No, our point here is that there seems to be a slight but telling inclination among colour and feature writers to refer to the players as ‘millionaires’, or even worse, ‘young millionaires’, as if disporting themselves in the open air is not the thing to do as late-capitalist system mimics the suds in the shower and heads for the plughole.
If there’s a suggestion of a turn against celebrating the greatness of the club-swingers, though, then we’re surprised that commentators are holding back on the vast opportunities for symbolism which Celtic Manor affords.
The mere sight of the avatars of the western financial system – professional golfers! – soaked to the skin and walking through muddy fields would be dismissed by John Bunyan, author of A Pilgrim’s Progress, as being too obvious an image to use.
Bunyan came up with the Slough of Despond and the Hill of Difficulty; apply your own nicknames to the tricky 17th at the Ryder Cup venue, which is conveniently located near a Christchurch in the valleys.
There are other, even more fruitful metaphorical avenues you can explore in Wales.
It’s surprising people haven’t taken Pádraig Harrington and Rory McIlroy beyond their face value and shoehorned them into some kind of relative arrangement as emblems of the old and new Ireland.
Harrington, the dedicated worker reaping the rewards of his long hours of lonely practice; McIlroy coming to his maturity during the screaming years of the boom and arriving in Wales to be consoled by his teammates wearing wigs, like kids heading to the Canaries after the Leaving Cert.
(Of course, the symbolism may not quite work out – the symbol of old Ireland is 39, and it would be unwise to presume McIlroy is anything but as dedicated as Harrington).
The ultimate in neat imagery, however, is the fact that once upon a time we too had the Ryder Cup here in Ireland, an event now so laughably remote in possibility, if not in actual time, that our grandchildren will guffaw when we mention it in years to come.
However, over the weekend we clicked onto the website for that event which, though the golf ended four years ago, is still standing.
It was interesting to note that the very first name on the list of official sponsors was one of those banks which is now being provided with money that would otherwise have been used to treat sick children or frittered away in some other ridiculous wasteful activity.
I know, I know. There are so many examples that you can’t fail to turn one up. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. But hey, we’ve been the fish for long enough. It’s no harm to get the rifle into our hands once in a while.
* Contact: michael.moynihan@examiner.ie; twitter: MikeMoynihanEx
